OJ Simpson Dies At 76, Family Says

LAS VEGAS — OJ Simpson died Wednesday of cancer, according to his family. He was 76.

Simpson was a decorated football superstar and Hollywood actor who was acquitted of charges he killed his former wife and her friend but later found liable in a separate civil trial.

Simpson fought prostate cancer for years and spent recent months in hospice care, according to TMZ. He died in Las Vegas, the New York Post reported.

"He was surrounded by his children and grandchildren," the family said in a post on X. "During this time of transition, his family asks that you please respect their wishes for privacy and grace."

Simpson earned fame, fortune and adulation through football and show business, but his legacy was forever changed by the June 1994 knife slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman in Los Angeles.

An estimated 95 million people watched as Simpson, a person of interest in the case, led authorities on a televised slow-speed chase through Los Angeles instead of turning himself in, riding in a white Ford Bronco with ex-NFL player Al Cowlings behind the wheel, ESPN reported.

The chase went on for two hours and spanned 60 miles and Simpson was armed with a handgun in the back seat, threatening to take his own life, according to ABC News.

The public was mesmerized by his "trial of the century" on live TV. His case sparked debates on race, gender, domestic abuse, celebrity justice and police misconduct.

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In one particularly memorable moment, Simpson struggled to put on a blood-stained glove, resulting in defense attorney Johnnie Cochran's famous remark that, "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit," according to the Post. Blood from the crime scene was also found in Simpson's home and car, ABC News reported.

A criminal court jury found Simpson not guilty of murder in 1995, but a separate civil trial jury found him liable in 1997 for the deaths and ordered him to pay $33.5 million to family members of Brown and Goldman.

Before her death, Brown had accused Simpson of physical and verbal abuse, the Post reported.

In 1989, Simpson was arrested for beating her and threatening to kill her, according to ABC News, which reported he pleaded no contest and received a sentence of probation, counseling and community service.

In 2007, still shadowed by the California wrongful death judgment, Simpson led five men he barely knew into a confrontation with two sports memorabilia dealers in a cramped Las Vegas hotel room. Two men with Simpson had guns. A jury convicted Simpson of armed robbery and other felonies.

Imprisoned at age 61, he served nine years in a remote northern Nevada prison, including a stint as a gym janitor. He was not contrite when he was released on parole in October 2017. The parole board heard him insist yet again that he was only trying to retrieve sports memorabilia and family heirlooms stolen from him after his criminal trial in Los Angeles.

"I've basically spent a conflict-free life, you know," Simpson, whose parole ended in late 2021, said.

Public fascination with Simpson never faded. In 2016, he was the subject of both an FX miniseries and five-part ESPN documentary.

"I don't think most of America believes I did it," Simpson told The New York Times in 1995, a week after a jury determined he did not kill Brown and Goldman. "I've gotten thousands of letters and telegrams from people supporting me."

Twelve years later, following an outpouring of public outrage, Rupert Murdoch canceled a planned book by the News Corp-owned HarperCollins in which Simpson offered his hypothetical account of the killings. It was to be titled, "If I Did It."

Goldman's family, still doggedly pursuing the multimillion-dollar wrongful death judgment, won control of the manuscript. They retitled the book "If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer."

Simpson played 11 NFL seasons, nine of them with the Buffalo Bills, where he became known as "The Juice" on an offensive line known as "The Electric Company." He won four NFL rushing titles, rushed for 11,236 yards in his career, scored 76 touchdowns and played in five Pro Bowls. His best season was 1973, when he ran for 2,003 yards — the first running back to break the 2,000-yard rushing mark.

He also worked as a sportscaster, acted in movies and television, and was a spokesman for the rental car service Hertz, according to ABC News.

Orenthal James Simpson was born July 9, 1947, in San Francisco, where he grew up in government-subsidized housing projects.

After graduating from high school, he enrolled at City College of San Francisco for a year and a half before transferring to the University of Southern California for the spring 1967 semester.

He married his first wife, Marguerite Whitley, on June 24, 1967, moving her to Los Angeles the next day so he could begin preparing for his first season with USC — which, in large part because of Simpson, won that year's national championship.

Simpson won the Heisman Trophy in 1968. He accepted the statue on the same day that his first child, Arnelle, was born.

He had two sons, Jason and Aaren, with his first wife; one of those boys, Aaren, drowned as a toddler in a swimming pool accident in 1979, the same year he and Whitley divorced.
Simpson and Brown were married in 1985. They had two children, Justin and Sydney, and divorced in 1992. Two years later, Nicole Brown Simpson was found murdered.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.